The Jungle That Is Stephanie’s Bedroom

Posted by Jesse

Most of the times I’m flying solo with the girls, I pride myself on being fairly entertaining. Not tonight. I was a tad weary from a long day and a late-breaking sports story that had me phone-watching for much of the evening. Working in sports, I hesitate to refer to anything I have to work on as “big” or “important”, but…people do like to talk sports and these people several means to communicate and, well, a lot of people used those means to ask me tonight what the hell happened to Butch Davis. If you have no idea who Butch Davis is, I currently envy you a great deal.

So when a crisis broke out, I knew I had to spring into action with twice the usual exuberance to make up for my lackluster performance the rest of the night. After going upstairs to change into pajamas right before bedtime, Stephanie returned in tears. This itself was not the crisis, expecially considering earlier in the evening Steph had admitted that fake crying was a skill she traded on. (DJ, who may miss this post because she’s at camp, will be happy to learn this: remember the time you hit Steph with your dance bag and suspected she was embellishing the injury a bit? She was.)

Apparently the source of the tears was an animal on the looose. Not a stuffed animal mind you (though lose track of her stuffed moose and I guarantee you there will be tears, REAL tears, and lots of them), but a real, live animal. The missing creature? You guessed it, one of the vaunted Decapod Crustaceans that came back from Myrtle Beach.

My first move was to assess the tears.

“Are you crying because you’re worried your hermit crab is gone, or are you worried it’s running around your room?”

As suspected, it was most certainly the latter. And in fact, that’s not an unjustified paranoia. As has probably been chronicled on the blog before, Stephanie once had a hamster get out of its cage and bite her on the nose while she slept. Her room is where animals go to party. And bite people. That’s how we ended up with a hamster cage under a blanket behind a couch under lock and key in the unifinished, unvisited part of the basement. Poor Steph.

“I don’t care if my hermit crab is dead I just don’t want it crawling around my room!”

“I don’t see how that thing could have gotten out,” I said, examining the empty shells in the glass cage, doing my best Lenny Brisco impersonation and trying to determine if this nimble crab really could have scaled a glass bowl.

“Oh yeah, they definitely can,” offered Michelle. “My friend Kimmy had one and it got out and they found it a week later crawling on the stairs.” Glad she’s here.

I offered the sleeping downstairs option (no sweat off my back since “downstairs” means “Danny’s room”), but with uncaged animals and little girls, it is most definitely a “once bitten, twice shy” situation. Stephanie was not convinced that the hermit crab would not seek her out for retribution for being taken from his friend in Myrtle Beach. The crab had to be found.

It was about this time Stephanie recalled that she had been playing with her pet with a friend and, perhaps, could have left him outside the bowl. I confirmed this was highly likely, but the point remained: we had to find the monster crab that was threatening to terrorize the night’s sleep. And I needed a night’s sleep.

So I got down on hands and knees and after an extensive, exhausting 11-second search, was able to locate Priscilla swimming in the dust ruffle. Problem solved. Night saved. But just to be safe, everyone’s sleeping downstairs tonight.

10 Comments

Glad it was you chasing that thing. Get it harnessed before I come or I will be sleeping in Danny’s room. I either want a “normal” animal, which means a dog or a cat or nothing! I am not into creepy, crawly things. I watched while they bought them but would not touch them. Didn’t tell them this but I just don’t pet things that live in shells or that crawl. Those things need to be left alone to live out their uneventful lives in their natural habitat. Another animal for the basement.

Anne Spottswood

HA! Great post. Don’t tell Stephanie that I have had bugs fall from the rafters at camp and land on my head. That calls for checking your bed every 5 seconds for beetle bugs! Grossness! Also had a snake in my cabin once found by OD. Double Grossness!! All was well though.

Aunt Susan

Nice to hear from you Jesse, I do know who Butch Davis is and I don’t care. Did you think that “Priscilla” maybe offened by his name? Maybe she shoud change it to Phil and he won’t escape again.
As for the “Lackluster” performance, that I find very hard to believe, you are the tops in Muncles you know! as well a the all time number one orginal. Hope to hear from you more.

Lisa Messick

Hannah and Sarah each had hermit crabs when they were about Michelle’s age. They had decided to take them out and let them race across my kitchen floor. After Hannah’s crab crossed the finishline, it apparently decided to make a break for it, because it was gone. We looked everywhere for it and no crab. A week goes by, meanwhile I’m convinced that I will come across a dead crab and be forced to had another funeral for a crab, when I start hearing a fant clicking noise. After looking for the source of the noise, we realized it was Hannah”s crab walking down the hallway. Good thing for him that we have hardwood floors. We thought it was running to us, because it hadn’t had any food or water for a week.

Danny Tanner

Great post! I’m not fond of creepy and crawly creatures so I think I can relate with Stephanie. I’m reminded of the bugs that terrorized me in my room and my dad would have to rush to my aid (albeit begrudgingly since I was big and the bugs were small) . Great memories.

It’s going to be really hard to work in my office this morning with a constant smile on my face and trying really hard not to laugh outloud!!! This reminds me so much of my children growing up and wanting every creature on the farm to live in the house. Memories!!! Thank you so much for sharing your family adventures. I will be returning often and I wish you all the blessings you richly deserve Mom!!